Date:         Thu, 7 Mar 1996 20:55:11 +0100
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         GlenSwanson@dk-online.dk (Glen Swanson)
Subject:      My attempts at spotting type IIs in Costa Rica.

        Just returned from 14 days down in Costa Rica. A killer 14 hour
flight home, made for a bonus on the kick-in-the-head jet lag. Anyway, the
job was a real mess, which means that while I spotted a tremendous number
of vws, I only had the chance get my hands on one.
        I flew in to San  Jos=E9 and from the trip to the airport to the
Hotel down town I was loving it. Spotted A Bay window westie right off. In
addition, I saw five other bay windows, in varying degrees of performance.
By that I mean from clapped out, to pretty darn clean. I've got a 1961 so
my capacity at differentiating the bay windows is very limited. I have to
assume these where for the most part of the South American breed, as they
had some interesting trim configurations. Most, though not all of the full
window versions had what must bee a deluxe trim package: either strips of
chrome along the side along the belt line, or down on the rocker panel. The
former did not extend to the front nose. Also most of the bays had large
crome VW emblems on the nose. Is this normal?
        The first night we finished up a quick meeting, and I went for a
walk around the hotel. Across in a parking lot I spotted a 1964 deluxe bus.
=46irst night in town made me cautious about sneaking across a dark lot in a
strange town to nose into someone else's vehicle, but as luck would have it
I bumped into the owner on my very last day and got one good luck. Although
it looked nice that first night, in the bright of the day it had all the
woes of the third world. This included strange hybrid growths, such as
wings welded above the front door windows to deflect breezes, zero engine
tin ( this was weird, I tried talking sense to the fellow, but he insisted
it ran cooler with out all the blocking tin.), too many head lights, and a
neat paint job that gave a kind of silvery metallic glow to the upper part.
        From then on I spotted a large number of type IIs. I was in San
Jos=E9 on four different occasions in the 14 days and on each their was no
end to their number. But again, as the job was serious business, I couldn't
afford a moment to stop. I could only observe that there is plenty of
hardware to be found in Costa Rica. In all I spotted a half dozen splits.
Two bullet turn signals and the rest with fish eyes. Odd sights included
two water cooled bays: one with the radiator in the front the other in the
rear. Also some very nice NAPA parts buses, in wonderful colour
combinations.
        While I didn't get a chance to see much up close, I saw and heard
some performance as they whipped through the traffic. I know this is
stretching it, but my impression was that engines where well tuned. Also
given the two splits that I saw soaring  up the 1,400 meter pass into San
Jos=E9, it wasn't unusual to  swap engines for large displacement.
        If the time was on my side, I probably would have been able to
score parts, as I saw no end to the service shops with bugs and vans about.
To those traveling to South America, my impression, talking to our driver,
was that you will have no trouble finding spares, and knowledgeable people
to provide service. Prices are a little high, but compared to Canada and
the USA you'll still be ahead.
        Anyone else contemplating a trip, I would give it my full
endorsement. Great holiday country and a type II land that's a feast.
        I would add that I spent most of my time deep upland in the north
east. The rougher the country the fewer the type IIs to spot. Not because
they couldn't cope, but because this was newly opened land, mostly serviced
by heavy duty transports and aid agencies' japanese 4X4's. I just have to
shake my head at them buying that junk. In four years the NGO's project is
up, they go home and leave behind an expensive clapped out piece of junk,
that costs a fortune to get import parts to service. Oops, sorry, but part
of the job was to evaluate efficacy. I'll stop now...
Excuse the jet lag rambling but I had fun.


Glen Swanson
1956 de luxe sedan  daily driver
1961 221 transporter